I wasn’t planning on taking a stab at any of these, but a few of them are just too juicy to leave unresolved. (DAMN, I love this board.
) Sometime tomorrow.
I’m a bit flattered that I got guesses for two of mine so quickly. Unfortunately, I also get the impression that I should either post more often or update my website faster, as they were both wrong.
G. #3 is the lie. I started using the NordicTrack again because I’d been unemployed for some time, had the time, and thought, what the heck, why not work off a few pounds. American Idol, a program I comment on frequently here, was on at the time, so I decided to time my workouts with that program. I stopped using the machine because, well, I got a job and didn’t have the free time anymore, plus it’s boring as hell doing the same two motions over and over. It had absolutely nothing to do with Jasmine Trias.
#1 is a bit tricky; I’d been taking piano lessons for many years despite absolutely loathing every single moment of it…both for the usual reasons (“talent”, blech), and because my parents feverntly believed that I had to do something pianolike. Or get used to hard, painful, fruitless work. Whatever. Well, for many years my teacher was able to blithely ignore the glazed expression on my face, the completely listlessness in my fingers, and the near-suffocating aura of dreariness I took to each and every lesson. One day, however (and I have no idea what sparked this), she said “No. You hate this. You hate being here. I will not teach someone who doesn’t want to learn.” And that was the end of that. Of course, my parents, in their vast wisdom :rolleyes: , promptly decided that I needed a replacement…whatever the freak it was, and the perfect opportunity just happened to show up. Hawaii Boy Scout Troop 75, a bunch of malcontents (and one relatively agreeable guy) who were exactly the sort of people I couldn’t get along with in a thousand years. Yeah, I had an interesting childhood. :mad:
As for #2, that one’s a lot simpler. In one of my jobs, I got a pretty bad cold, but my workplace needed hands and I didn’t think it was serious enough to take sick leave. Sure enough, a friendly co-worker took note of my sneezing and sniffling and proposed an unusual countermeasure…hot tea (“Much better than coffee!”). Before long, I, who had never had a taste for tea before, was happily downing 3 cups a day. At the very least, the hot drink helped clear the snot out, and it may have actually shortened my recovery by a day or two. From then on, while hot tea isn’t my first beverage, I don’t mind it at all. (So long as it’s not bitter. Or too strong.)
A. #2 is the lie. I considered taking Drafting one semester, but (fortunately) both courses were filled. The most I ever took was one noncredit AutoCAD course (which took a little over a month and in a different college). #3 is absolutely true…my mother was pretty adamant about me completing my Bachelor’s. As for #1, my first semester was Fall '92, where I got horrible grades and was put on academic probation, which required me to get a GPA of 2.0 or higher the very next enrolled semester or be expelled. I quit college briefly to look for work after the Spring '94 semester (picking up a second academic probation in the process), found nothing but a lousy paper route, quit it in October of '95, returned to college in Spring '96 (incidentally also the first time I ever learned of and used the World Wide Web), where I was FINALLY put on the right track, taking my first 4-year courses in summer '99 and ultimately picking up my Bachelor’s in December '01…9 years and a semester after my first foray into higher education.